London’s Natural History Museum gets nearly $200 million to digitize many millions of specimens.
At the minimum, the NHM effort, like others around the world, expects to digitally record all the details from specimen labels—such as when and where it was collected, species names, or other identifying details. Researchers also want to include digital images detailed enough to make examining the specimens in person less essential. Ultimately, with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) programs, they would like to create “extended digital specimens” that link biological specimens to details of the environment and ecosystem in which the organism lived.